‘Immediate Action needed to make Sellafield waste safe’ – Ritchie

SDLP South Down MP Margaret Ritchie has said that she is shocked by the contents of an Environment Agency report which says that the UK’s Cumbria Nuclear Waste dump is virtually certain to be eroded by rising sea levels.

Speaking to Newry Times, Ritchie said, “This situation is totally unacceptable and should never have been allowed to happen by the UK Nuclear regulatory authorities.

“For some time now I have called on the British Government to take action to protect coastal communities in Britain and Ireland from unplanned discharges of toxic waste from these facilities. To date their response has been hugely disappointing.

“This report from the Environment Agency confirms our fears. The Cumbrian Nuclear Waste dump will be affected, in a devastating way, by climate change through the impact of flooding and rising sea levels.

“The report admits that it is only a matter of time before the site is compromised and begins leaking radioactive material. Whether that happens in a few hundred years or a few thousand years is immaterial. We have a responsibility to safeguard future generations from the dangers that we’ve created,” she insisted.

“This site already contains 1 million cubic metres of radioactive waste. And I understand that the Environment Agency is considering plans to dump a further 800,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste there over the next 10 years.

“Given that Sellafield was constructed on a geological fault line and that Drigg site is now recognised to be at risk from flooding, it is hugely irresponsible to continue to dump there.

Ritchie added, “I will continue to pursue the British Government to ensure that coastal communities in South Down are protected and insulated from the toxic radioactive waste at these sites.”

You think this is bad…The really bad news is that the UK government are trying their best to go ahead with an underground disposal facility to house the really high level waste, this facility if the government get their way will be in the Sellafield/Solway plain area. The facilty would be a bigger project than the Channel Tunnel and about the size of a city underground.